“Israel’s” Longest Ground War: The Military Doesn’t Want to Fight

“Israel’s” military and political leaders were not exaggerating when they said they were fighting a war that surpassed the intensity of the “state-founding” war in 1948.

The Al-Aqsa Flood Operation and its aftermath, with all its ramifications, complexities, and expansion of the fighting, surpassed the intensity of the October 6, 1973 war, and even all the wars between the Arab regimes and “Israel” combined.

The “Israeli” occupation army, which relied on its tactics for quick and rapid wars in which it transferred the battle to the enemy’s territory, has never in its history fought for 300 consecutive days.

That said, “Israel’s” firepower and the resulting harm and massacres of civilians, as well as losses among the resistance and its capabilities, cannot be compared to the harm and the number of deaths the resistance factions inflicted on the occupation army.

However, calculating losses here is not measured by abstract mathematical rules because the nature on which the occupation army, the militarized society, and its incubator were built on, is more sensitive to losses, given that the philosophy of establishing the occupation entity, in the collective Jewish consciousness, from the founding generation to the fighters of 2024, was based on the assumption that Palestine is a land of prosperity and happiness.

This war also shattered the historical taboo of ​​the heroic army, which defeated the combined Arab armies in six days and was able to transform an Arab victory on October 6 into a partial defeat, expelling the PLO from Lebanon in 1982 while it was on its knees, then assassinated its leaders in far corners of the world.

This same army is devising ways and tricks to pressure the political leadership to stop the war.

During the past two months, dozens of statements have been recorded indicating the desire of its Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevi, along with the Minister of War, Yoav Gallant, to change the pace of fighting.

This desire was followed by demands for discussions about the day after the war, an attempt to hasten the announcement about the supposed elimination of the capabilities of the Qassam Brigades in Rafah, and to hand over photos that the army found in the Strip showing the conditions of the soldiers and settlers held captive in Gaza to pressure the Prime Minister to make a deal. 

They also announced that the losses among “Israeli” soldiers had doubled and acknowledged that the army was suffering from a lack of tanks and vehicles while leaving the charred and destroyed personnel carriers in the streets of Shuja’iyya, Tal al-Hawa, and Rafah.

These actions highlight the deepening crisis within the Israeli military amid the ongoing war in Gaza. Daily operations by the resistance have destroyed hundreds of “Israeli” tanks, which are the backbone of its ground forces, forcing “Israel” to deploy old vehicles and personnel carriers that are not qualified for this fight.

In addition, the repeated ground incursions into areas where soldiers have suffered heavy losses and withdrew claiming to have completed the mission of eliminating the resistance, such as the neighborhoods of Tal al-Hawa, Shuja'iyya, Jabalia, Zeitoun, and Khan Yunis, have increased the state of frustration among “Israeli” troops. 

“Israeli” forces increasingly feel they are tilting at windmills, and even being confronted with resistance that is more fierce and more experienced than the one they encountered months ago in areas they’ve left.

Could the army collapse? This hypothesis seems far-fetched, not because the occupation army is iron-clad and superhuman, but because the enormous capabilities of the “Israeli” security establishment, specifically the air force, will be able at any time to hide the weakness that the army is experiencing on the ground. 

Also, such an assumption is linked to the ability of the resistance on the frontlines in Gaza to carry out a counterattack, which is unlikely, given the resistance’s preservation of ammunition and fighters, due to the ambiguity of the duration of the war as well as the post-war phase.